James’ Journey – Part 1 – Transition from Christianity to Atheism

MY personal experience of religion was generally fun, and at no time did I suffer any psychological torment as a result of my belief in Christianity. I was never harassed or mistreated by the community of Chrsitians I was a part of. I really enjoyed myself most of the time, and I took my beliefs VERY seriously.

My path to atheism was a completely intellectual affair. The reason I stopped believing was that Christianity just stopped making sense to me. To me its core tenets defied common sense, and its stories went against logic, science and reason. I then realised that all the other religions suffered the same flaws that rendered them just as unbelieveble. There was just no way I could keep believing in the stories of the bible or any other ‘holy’ book anymore, especially knowing what I came to learn from sciences like biology, psychology, neurology and anthropology. I also came to learn that there weren’t any good reasons to believe in the existence of a ‘God’.

The following story is an account of my transition from belief to non-belief…

I was born, and spent the first decade or so of my life, in Japan, a highly secular Asian country. This society is rather non-religious so for most of my early life I didn’t really know what religion even was. It also so happened that my parents were not that religious either. Sure, they believed in ‘God’, but I don’t ever recall being made to pray as a kid. Yeah, we went to a Baptist Church a few times, but due to the distance from home (there were so very few churches in Tokyo) eventually our family all but stopped bothering to go to church.

In 1985, when I was 10 years old some Jehovah’s Witnesses came knocking on our door with all these colourful books about Christianity, and my mother was more than happy to have them visit us weekly to teach us about religion. These sessions didn’t last very long though, since we were shortly to return to Uganda. We did, in 1986.

I was introduced to Pentecostalism (an extremely wacky brand of Christianity) when, in 1989, I joined a boarding school (King’s College Budo) for Senior One at age 14 (Standard One / 8th Grade).

By then I was a highly impressionable high school student, and was eager to absorb my new environment. Of course, it wasn’t easy – especially since older students bullied us into running all their errands. Boarding school life in Uganda is also quite harsh, with all manner of school chores relegated to junior students, of whom we were were the bottom bunch. It was indeed a dog-eat-dog world with all of us having to fend for ourselves. My classmates, also being new themselves, were just as clueless as I was, so I found myself struggling to fit in and find my place, like everybody else.

It was a truly confusing time for me.

One day while I was lying on my bed (having just finished scrubbing the dormitory floors) when a born-again Christian 4 years my senior invited me to attend fellowship meeting scheduled for that evening. I was bored and doing nothing substantial, so I tagged along.

The welcome I got was amazing. Everyone – teachers, seniors, all welcomed me, shook my hand, and gave me hugs! It felt really nice to belong to a group that ‘accepted’ me, and treated me with respect. Believe me, these were EXACTLY the sort of things I craved at the time, having just been enrolled into this boarding school, and living a hard life among strangers for the first time. It felt good being offered the chance to fit in. The music and singing at the fellowships was really nice too. The whole experience was very emotional for me (in a nice way).

At these fellowship meetings was where I first started getting exposed to biblical scripture. I was told that the bible was the word of God. I figured it must be – why else would all these guys be taking it seriously? I listened to sermons about God’s love, grace, etc.. and it all sounded very nice. “GOD LOVES ME!” they kept telling me. The creator of the universe loves me!” I was reminded over and over again.

Slowly I warmed up to the idea, and concluded, if the bible IS the word of God, and it says there’s hell, and it says if I don’t accept Jesus I’ll go there – well, the SENSIBLE thing would be to get saved, right? I mean, who wants to be roasted in hell for eternity? Prior to my conversion I had always kind of assumed that ‘something’ must be out there. Now I was being presented with the claim that the Yahweh/Jesus was this ‘something’, and that this ‘something’ loves me and wants to have a relationship with me. This Jesus died for me so that I could have eternal life. It sounded really enticing!

I got saved.

I started attending fellowship meetings more regularly. Over time my zeal grew to amazing new proportions. I really was starting to enjoy the religious experience. One time I and about 4 of my dormmates formed a mini singing group and staged a performance for our fellowship group. We got a standing ovation! It was great.

Over time, I found myself getting interested in the mystical aspects of Pentecostalism, with the promises of magical ‘spiritual gifts’. I and my friends engaged in what we called ‘demon-busting’ – where we would try to expel demons from ourselves whenever each of us with afflicted with a problem. Those days we blamed demons for everything from headaches, poor test scores, to sexual attraction towards female classmates, so demon-busting was something we engaged in often. In retrospect it all seems very silly, but at the time we were continuously being warned that we were living in the last days, and that we Christians had to engage in spiritual warfare with demonic principalities if we really wanted to save our souls. We were told that by simply invoking the name of Jesus these demons would flee. We took these threats seriously and were working hard to deal with them by believing in Christ and using his name to defeat the ‘enemy’. We often spent hours praying for our friends, family and the world, I remember.

In addition to this, I began to ‘speak’ in tongues. I prayed for my freinds to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, I saw visions and even had prophetic dreams. I reached a stage where I would spend afternoons having conversations with God as a washed my clothes – thanking him for this and that, asking him what he thought I should do to help my parents through their marital troubles, etc.

I was burning with passion to do God’s will at all times.

The more I embraced this spiritual worldview, the more I wanted to know about God. I decided to actively read the bible so that I could build my own understanding of God, and what his will and plan for me was. I developed the habit of carrying my bible alongside my other textbooks to the study hall every single night. Pretty soon, I stopped carrying text books, and would just carry my bible, and it was all I would read during evening study time.

Then I dared myself…I decided I was going to read the bible in its entirety.

I found myself getting immersed in the bible more and more. I must say it helped that I found the stories interesting – interesting in a ‘story-book’ sort of way. The struggles of the biblical heroes against Satan and human adversaries were fun to read.

Things took an interesting twist.

By the time I was just quarter-way through the bible, I was starting to be disturbed by the things I was reading.

I began finding passages where my ‘loving God’ not only approved of, but ORDERED horrendous acts to be committed in his glory. Here, I’m talking about wholesale extermination of tribes like the Amalekites, where not even women and babies were to be left alive! What?? A loving God to order this? This is completely incompatible with the picture of a loving God. Of course the fellowship leaders tried to rationalise for me all these inconsistencies and contradictions, but their explanations were simply too illogical and far-fetched for me to believe.

For example, I was told – in the case of the Global Flood – that God knew that those babies that drowned were going to grow up to commit evil acts, so it was better to kill them off while they were still infants. But this made no sense to me. According to the Genesis passage, we are given the impression that God was surprised that the world would get so ‘wicked’. He is said to have been grieved that he had made them. This cannot be reconciled with the notion that God knew what evils these children would commit when they grew up. It makes no sense. In any case, drowning all of them STILL constituted an evil act.

The Amalekite massacre, the Flood story…all these stories were just so BIZARRE! Too bizarre to be taken seriously, and even more bizarre if I was to be expected to believe that a ‘loving God’ would not only order such horrors, but would carry them out himself.

Well, I thought, that’s the Old Testament. I convinced myself that I should focus on the mesage of love found in the Gospels revealed through Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, the New Testament fared no better. I began to have serious trouble seeing the logic behind ‘salvation’. I mean, according to the bible, here we have an omniscient God who knew everything that would happen even before he created the first electron of this universe. He created angelic beings, of which he KNEW some would disobey him EVEN BEFORE he created them, and that one of them would be Lucifer who would eventually be the catalyst of Man’s ‘fall’. Then he created man and woman whom HE KNEW would disobey him before he created them because Lucifer would tempt them – which he also KNEW would happen…

In other words, God knew from the start, that there would be a fall. In his omniscience he knew how everything would play out, but then he let it play out anyway. So as predicted, Man ‘falls’, and all his descendants, we are being asked to believe, are ‘living in sin’, requiring God to sacrifice himself to himself in order to appease himself and pay the ‘price’ to himself for Man’s sin?

As if this isn’t bizarre enough – those who fail to accept this hard-to-believe story as true and take Jesus as personal saviour then get sent to hell (no matter how good they were) to be tormented for eternity?

Huh???????????

No, it made no sense.

I also began to notice there were mistakes in the bible. Now my doubts were really beginning to kick in.

After a lot of thought, and exposure to some literature on human psychology, I started to wonder whether a lot of what I thought were my ‘spiritual’ experiences hadn’t really just been in my mind. This will make you laugh – I dug up my scrap book from a year earlier where I used to write down what I had seen in my many ‘prophetic’ visions from God. Much to my surprise, I noticed that the accounts of my visions strongly resembled monster stories on TV from my childhood. The ‘beasts’ I used to see in my ‘prophetic’ dreams were identical to monsters I had seen in TV shows as a child! I couldn’t believe it!

I was shocked at how the mind could be made to conjure images from memory and make them seem like actual apparitions in real time. Of course as a born-again Christian I saw anything and everything that happened from a supernaturalist perspective. Yes, while praying I used to get that weird shaky feeling stirring inside by body, but now I started to wonder if it wasn’t just me psyching myself into a frenzy. The same with speaking in tongues. Wasn’t I just mumbling jibberish the whole time? But after doing it for a while it started to feel like it came to me naturally. (I can even still do it today by the way).

And so began my withdrawal from Christianity.

I must say that mine was a gradual transition from belief to non-belief. I never had a ‘eureka’ moment where I all-of-a-sudden realized that Christianity was false. It was more like a slow erosion of the mental barriers I had erected in my mind during my time as a Christian. By the time I was 20 I had all but abandoned Christianity, and in the 3 or so years that followed I was somewhat fascinated by astrology – which I got exposed to while I was studying in India (I was pursuing a bachelors’ degree in Commerce). But critical thinking demolished any inclination I may have had towards those superstitions. I was also beginning to learn that miracle healing crusades were fraudulent and that tales of local witchdoctors and their magic were fabrications. I generally came to view the supernatural with a great deal of skepticism until I found there really were no good reasons to think the supernatural even exists – and by extention, even ‘God’.

I really didn’t know what to call myself now that I had done away with all supernatural beliefs. I was quite unfamiliar with the term ‘atheist’ at the time. It wasn’t until 2003, that I really knew what a person like me was called. I was 28 years old at the time. I came to learn that a person like me was called an atheist.

Since understanding that I was an atheist, I began studying many of the issues pertaining to science, religion, and philosophy more seriously, and actively. I subscribed to a number of podcasts that discussed these issues at length, and began downloading and listening to debates between Christian and atheist philosophers and scientists. I also got interested in the Evolution/Creation debate and studied as much biology as I could. I came to enjoy this journey very much, and I countinue to do so, even to this day. There is always something new to learn.

As of now I can safely say I am in a happy place in my life, with no regrets whatsoever. I do not need to believe in a ‘God’ to be a good person. I do not need to believe in a ‘God’ to help others. I do not need to believe in a ‘God’ to derive meaning and purpose out of my life. I am not worried about the ‘after-life’ – there’s no good reason to think one exists, so its pointless to live in anxiety about whether you’re going to heaven or hell. Besides, heaven and hell are products of human imagination arising from a fear of death.

I embrace the fact that life is limited, and so in the few years I have on this planet I intend to make the most of my life!

In Part 2 of ‘James’ Journey’ I will discuss how people in my life have reacted to my walking away from faith, and how new people I meet react when they find out that I am an atheist.

Welcome to the world of freedom where logic,reason,scientific evidence reigns. You are no longer a slave of any master. Indeed you have no gods,you have no masters. Keep up the strength and help others discover the happiness of being a free from the bondage of fear. You are a winner.

Better to live your life like there is God and find there is no God in the here after than live like there is no God and find that there is a God. James, you know the whole truth but you have tried to CONVINCE yourself that it is all lies! I hear you are a radio presenter. Where? I hope you create a slot on ya show to debate about some of these issues.

Your comment is a standard Christian response to a non-believer – it is called Pascal’s Wager – but it doesn’t amount to much, unfortunately. As an argument for belief it is so weak that respected Christian apologists don’t even use it. Its criticisms can be found here. In the meantime:

For all you know, you’ve staked your future on the wrong god, or the wrong religion. If Islam is true, for example, you’re going to the Islamic hell. Are you ready for that? You might want to tell me that you are certain your religion is true. Well, guess what? Every adherent of every religion is convinced that his religion is true, and yours is wrong. They are just as convinced as you that they are right, and you are wrong.

As you have read, I have since freed myself from that irrational fear. Belief in heaven and hell are nothing more than superstitions arising from a fear of death. You have one life to live, and that’s it. Live it to the fullest. Live out your dreams.

Well,James.Ever since i read this piece of urs,many querries came to my mind.But 1st,thanx for this noow I know what u base all ur points on.I caution u that u highly respect scientists which is not a smart thing to do.They once believed that photons cant be brought to rest, that there is no water on the moon, that one van be sucked out of an aircraft when a door in opened in mid-air…etc so to base ur reason for stop believing in God on someone’s stuff is a very shaky ground.

Your leaving the FAITH was not intellectual….. it was that u never came to know the basic reason why Jesus came,lived,died,rose from the dead and is now seated on the right Hand of His Father in Heaven. If u say that the monsters u used to see in ur dreams,u r so wrong.I never read books with such pics in child-hood but i see these same things and even many men and women in the Bible had same experiences… do u want to tell us that they too read the books u read when they were still young?

Its human nature,people loose interest in alot of things in life. Dont ever think u got smarter,but u lost interest.But u r free to tell us anything but I personally dont buy this entire story of urs.

Hither to,u’ve never followed a single claim of miracle healing but u arrongantly say miracle-healing is a myth…. u never stop amusing me James……

Joshua, as a former Christian myself, I would challenge the idea that *leaving the FAITH was not intellectual…* and, I would challenge the idea that most believers can feel good about their lives. Oh yeah.

At Sunday school, I was taught things that seemed strange but were “articles of faith” that had to be believed. “God” was, after all, unknowable. The more I tried to understand, the more ridiculous the notion of a sky-daddy seemed. I spent some years grappling with the mass of superstition that I had been taught by “God’s spin doctors”. Eventually, my uncertainties about them turned to derision. Let’s be clear: religious belief is delusional. Even if it is comforting, that doesn’t make it true.

Okay, you say itz human nature, pple lose interest. True but with reason. Sound reason. It might not be reason enough to you but to some people, it counts.

As an atheist, I feel better than I did as a believer. If you were to experience the relief that comes with a non-superstitious, rational world-view, you would see what I mean. Try examining your beliefs to see if they are sound. Consider the “divine power” that apparently rules your life. Is it your comfort-blanket, your ostrich/sand thing, or your drug “fix”? Was the Haïtian earthquake a punishment from a loving god? Some punishment; some love. And so on.

And if it is wrong to endorse slavery, as the bible tell us, how can we trust anything else it says? Miracles? The notion of hell? The need to obey ‘The Sky-based Man’? Flood, earthquakes, and disease as God’s punishments? Sexual discrimination? Non-medical genital mutilation? It isn’t as though the holy books (shouldn’t that be ‘holy’?) tell us anything useful, like the importance of The Periodic Table in determining chemical properties. The Bible doesn’t even tell us that the Earth goes round the Sun…

I must say, there is nothing greater than being able to face up to your own difficulties openly and honestly, and to tackle them using everything available to us, whether that’s the best medical or financial advice, support from our friends and families, or simply sitting down and thinking things through calmly and logically and identifying the best way forward and then taking it. We don’t have to agonize over whether this suffering is part of God’s plan for us, or whether it’s some punishment for something we have or haven’t done….And every time something great happens to us, do we have to thank him? even wen itz clear he didnt put his hand in it? We don’t have to sit back and wait for someone or something else to sort things out for us, and we don’t have to feel guilty for taking matters into our own hands. We know that our own hands are all ANYONE has, even those who believe in a god. We don’t have to sit back and wait for a (non-existent) supernatural being to sort things out for us: we can do it ourselves.

Honestly, I would be surprised if an atheist came out and said ‘…i have investigated the Bible and found its claims to be true’.

There are three hypothesis why such tragedies happen, the first of which is untrue if either or both of the other two are true, that can explain why disasters sometimes destroy places of worship and cruelly assail pious worshipers:

1. God hates people.
2. There is no God.
3. There is no God, but if there were He would hate the people for being such unremitting deity suck-ups.
My money is on 3.

James, you are a really good communicator – on radio & in writing. I enjoy listening to you, this is the first time i’ve read but i like.

I find that my issues have never been with God, but rather with those who wish to enforce His ideas. Jesus said, they will kill you and feel they do me a favor.

However I do know that God is real, and if xtians were gentler with people who dont meet the prescribed standard, perhaps more people would stay long enough to reach the level where they are closer to “perfection” (in terms of loving God+one another)

I eagerly await part 2 of your story, and i bet God still believes in you…

Rita,u can really reason and write only that everyone writes what is on his/her mind and that is the stuff one stores over the years of listening/reading/watching stuff here and there.

This why we have people today who still ignorantly say there were no WMDs in Iraq forgetting what Kofi Anan say while being interviewed on PBS tv back in 1998. The very science that claims to be about facts has been proven to be wrong for stating that;”light travels in a straight line” despite all experiments in physics laboratories. You think u r smart to question facts in the bible;be my guest. The very things u can think that show mankind is smart has drowned in the sea of shame before our own eyes.Many have boasted of their Phds in climatology only to find that no one understands the earth’s climate as of now.We’re as good as any lay man on climate

you very well know that not all christians believe that disasters r punishment from God.You didnt even read the entire bible. There is new and old testament.Until u read the new testament with understanding, u r bound to portray yourself as another confused ethiest as Fat Boy

That’s is one example, about WMD, the marketing was so good by GWB and Blair, then until now, how many thousands of people are dead because of that nonsense story, no WMD and yeat people believed it.
It is the same like the Bible, it was written by different gospels at least around 60 years after Jesus, unfortunately there is not a single information on Jesus in the actual history of the Roman Empire in Judea, the story was only written by the 4 Gospels copying the story if Horus ( Ancient Egypt Myth) and Mithra (Zoroasterian God). There are contradictions and inconsistency in the bible. The Bible and Christianity were marketed by the Europeans in the first century, you need to read the history, please.

I’m an atheist, but if I’m wrong and there is a god then I think He must be a sadist.

“I’m bored. What can I do for a little excitement around here? Let’s shake things up with an earthquake and see if those puny bipeds down there can stay on those ridiculous feet I gave them. . . . Hmm, the flat-footed ones maintained their balance much longer than the ones with good arches. I’d better make a mental note to make flat-footedness rarer in the future.

i kind of stumbled into this atheist thing a little less than a month ago and reading the article really rubber-stamps my fears. the Pentecostals have have gone a l0ong way to cast doubt in our live as believers. their idea of what you do is wrong but their action is human error is what makes a great many people stumble. it’s therefore my opinion that your doubt was not caused per se on the fact that the bible has those loop- holes but because of what those friends in Christ that you had did not offer a satisfactory answer to your queries

Well if you have better answers to my queries I’ like to hear them, Amos 🙂

I do agree with you, however, that Pentecostals (or born-agains / fundamentalist evangelicals) have seriously, and perhaps irrevocably, damaged the reputation of Christianity. For example, in Uganda they are the driving force behind the horrendous anti-homosexuality bill, they encourage irrational mysticism, they ferociously advocate prayer as a viable problem solving tool (yet there is no evidence to suggest that it is in any way efficacious), and indulge in all manner of ridiculous activities and behaviour that will give the rational believer pause and raise many doubts in his/her mind about what is actually going on.

That said, I really do not find any other version of Christianity any more viable. The more I’ve looked into this matter, the more I’ve come to realise that Christianity, as with all major religions, is false. Of course, you’re welcome to try to convince me otherwise, if you wish. I am an open-minded person.

You are one of the most intelligent people i have ever listened to James. I listened to yo show every day when i still had the time. this is what i think happened along the way. ‘A young man was taught that premarital sex is not healthy while he had already reached adolescence. and obviously, there must be rebellion. James, you got to know about Christ at an adventurous point in your life. you did not have a strong foundation considering your family was not very christian either.and may be dint even share your fears with anyone superior. Am not ridiculing you James, am not.i know its only human. But my prayer is that the Lord reveals the truth to you.
And by they way, Christ is the true and only religion. not Catholicism or Islam.

James, I started listening to your show when Melanie was on it. I was never your fan and whenever Melanie was off, I always felt I was getting a raw deal. But with time, I started liking your sense of argument and liked your reasoning. I now listen to that show simply becuase you are on it since Melanie left.

I am sure you have read all Karl Marx’s work especially about religion -“Religion is the Opium of the World”. And you know what made him come to that sort of thinking. Since you believe in evolution too, I guess you have read Charles Darwin’s “Evolution Of Species”. Honestly speaking, God does exist. Atleast that is what Charles Darwin says at the end of his big book – “Evolution of the Species” – get a copy if you think I am kidding. And lastly, Newton – the greatest sceintist of all times was very clear about the existence of God.

Anyone who has seen bilogical cells at molecular level will appreciate the order they are in and realise that it was never by accident as evolution and the Big Bang theory wants us to believe. The order in the human brain cells was never accidental. The perfect balance of the universe is never by chance. Even each strand of hair on your head James has been counted and God knows how many you need and how many will grow each day – regardless of when you will cut it off today or tomorrow.

Thanks for visiting the Freethought Kampala blog. I’m glad to hear that you find my radio programmes enjoyable. I will continue to do my best to keep you entertained. I invite you to check out my podcast too (see: Fatboy Unplugged)

Meanwhile, you said some very interesting things that I wanted to respond to:

Honestly speaking, God does exist.

Honestly speaking, the world is flat. Of course, I don’t believe this at all, but then there are a lot of people who do (see: Flat Earth Society). I’m just trying to illustrate the point that ‘honestly believing’ something to be true doesn’t make it true. What is needed is evidence, for which I have come to find nothing compelling with regards what is believed by many a religious person to be a ‘God’.

Atleast that is what Charles Darwin says at the end of his big book – “Evolution of the Species” – get a copy if you think I am kidding. And lastly, Newton – the greatest sceintist of all times was very clear about the existence of God.

My disbelief in the existence of a ‘God’ has not to do with what famous intelligent people of the past believed. Why? Because people of past have tended to be more superstitious than people living today. Newton, for one, also believed in alchemy, for example, which today you and I know is nonsense. So should we lend alchemy any credence just because ‘the great’ Isaac Newton believed in it, and practised it? I don’t think so. (See: Newton’s alchemical research and writings)

My acceptance of the theory that Darwin put forward is not because Darwin believed it, but because Darwin presented solid evidence for it – evidence which today has corroboration from the fossil record and the fields of genetics, molecular biology and DNA, among others. Neither Darwin, nor Newton, were as forthcoming on their evidence for belief in a ‘God’ as they were for the various scientific theories they proposed some of which today we accept because of strong corroborative evidence in support of those theories.

As it is, today, the overwhelming majority of leading scientists do not believe in the existence of a ‘God’ (see: Leading Scientists Still Reject God). Of course, this does not mean that there are no gods just because today’s leading scientists do not believe in their existence, in the same way it does not mean gods do exist because some famous scientists from 200+ years ago (and some today) believed(s) such things exist.

It all boils down to the evidence, basically, which you would rather focus your arguments on – and not on who believes(d) this stuff.

Anyone who has seen bilogical cells at molecular level will appreciate the order they are in and realise that it was never by accident as evolution and the Big Bang theory wants us to believe.

Indeed we appreciate, and indeed we understand how those things have come to exist naturally – without the need to invoke gods.

Kazooba, you should be providing evidence for ‘God’ instead of making fallacious arguments from ignorance (See: Argument from Incredulity). Even if, for the sake of argument, evolution and big bang theory are false, it does not mean that a ‘God’ exists. That is what I think believers need to realise. This “then where did everything come from?” is not a valid argument for ‘God’s existence, for we can also ask the question “then where did ‘God’ came from?”. Who created he/she/it? If it is impossible for things to come into existence by ‘accident’ as you say, then who or what brought ‘God’ into existence? Did ‘God’ just appear by ‘accident’? Was ‘God’ always there? Then why can’t I also say nature was always there? So if you want to posit the existence of ‘God’, don’t point to mysteries, provide evidence.

It turns out that there is abundant evidence for evolution by natural selection and the Big Bang, so I have no reason to posit any gods as an explanation for life, species or the universe.

And by the way, the very fact that you say “accident” in your assessment of evolution kind of betrays the fact you do not understand it at all. Evolution is a gradual, incremental process – with the only random (or accidental) things being occasional genetic mutations. If a genetic mutation that has occurred during meiosis or DNA replication imbues an organism within a population with characteristics that confer upon it greater survivability and increases its chances of propagating its genes in a given environment, then slowly that mutation will become pervasive in the genome of successive generations of that organism. Should the environmental factors change yet again, then it is those among future generations who carry beneficial mutations that confer upon it greater survivability and increases its chances of propagating its genes that survive, and the rest die off. If there are no organisms in the population that are able to survive environmental changes, then that species goes extinct. And indeed, many, many species have gone extinct over the last 2 billion (+) years. (See: List of Extinct Animals)

No gods are necessary for this process. It is perfectly natural.

By the way, it’s ironic that believers would point to a ‘God’ as the source of these mutations. Many genetic mutations lead to a variety of harrowing genetic disorders (see: List of Genetic Disorders). So are you saying we have ‘God’ to thank for all these diseases? Were all manner of cancers, sickle-cell anaemia, etc.. “intelligently designed” by ‘God’ because mutations can’t happen by ‘accident’? Hmm…. You see, this ends up shooting down popular forms of Christian theology which claim that ‘God’ cannot create evil because he is ‘all-good’, doesn’t it? (Something that should concern you if you are a Christian)

Even each strand of hair on your head James has been counted and God knows how many you need and how many will grow each day – regardless of when you will cut it off today or tomorrow.

With better education, increased literacy and better access to information, religious people around the world are taking a deeper look at their rationale for adhering to their beliefs, and many are starting to question it. People are now aware of the multitude of mutually incompatible religions that exist, and that have existed in the past, which all make fantastical, non-verifiable supernatural claims – and an increasing number have began to deem all of them as falling within the realm of mythology. (See: How Many Atheists Are There In The World?)

If believing in your god makes you happy, I will not deny you of that joy. By all means, please enjoy that belief to the fullest.

I just find that there is no good reason to believe in gods, devils, angels, demons, ghosts, mermaids, witchcraft, Spider-Man, and other imaginary things.

@James…With that level of intelligience, Africa n humanity as a whole will advance; we shall conquer the sky, the waters and the under world. we shall kiss gdbye to human made desasters like climate change, AIDS and poverty etc.